Frank Gehry's New Facebook HQ Design

In a new Facebook post on Friday, Everett Katigbak, Facebook's Environmental Design Manager, revealed the plans for Facebook's new campus expansion, designed by the world-renowned architect, Frank Gehry. The Los Angeles Times reports that plans for the Silicon Valley site, which will be submitted Monday, will include a 420,000-square-foot, single-story warehouse topped with a garden that will span the entire roof. An excerpt from the post:

At every step of planning the new building, Frank has taken into account our engineering culture. It will be a large, one room building that somewhat resembles a warehouse. Just like we do now, everyone will sit out in the open with desks that can be quickly shuffled around as teams form and break apart around projects. There will be cafes and lots of micro-kitchens with snacks so that you never have to go hungry. And we'll fill the building with break-away spaces with couches and whiteboards to make getting away from your desk easy.

We've paid just as much attention to the outside as well. The exterior takes into account the local architecture so that it fits in well with its surroundings. We're planting a ton of trees on the grounds and more on the rooftop garden that spans the entire building. The raw, unfinished look of our buildings means we can construct them quickly and with a big emphasis on being eco-friendly. Of course, we'll maintain our current campus and use an underground tunnel to connect the two.

We plan to break ground on the new building in early 2013 and hope for a quick construction. When it's completed, we hope it will provide a paradise workspace for the 2,800 engineers who will one day fill it.

In May, Facebook was granted permission by city officials to hire up to 6,600 workers on the California campus according to PC Magazine. Facebook will pay the city of Menlo Park an average of $850,000 a year for 10 years, to cover the impact of additional workers on city infrastructure.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Microsoft Moving to Moffett Towers

Microsoft Corporation announced this week that it has entered into a long-term lease agreement to take up 237,000 square feet at Moffett Towers in Sunnyvale, California according to a GlobeSt.com article. The company will be making the move from its current spaces in Palo Alto and Mountain View, a total of roughly 160,000 square feet of space, and expects to begin occupying 1020 Enterprise Way in January 2012. While the terms of the deal were undisclosed, it's been reported that asking rates for Moffett Towers are $2.95 per square foot per month.

Moffett Towers is a 1.8 million square foot office/R&D campus in the heart of Silicon Valley developed by San Francisco-based Jay Paul Company. Other tenants include HP, which leased 393,776 square feet in April, and Motorola Mobility, which leased 236,444 square feet in March.

"Microsoft's lease is another significant endorsement from a market leader of the unparalleled Moffett Towers office park experience," said Cornish & Carey Commercial Newmark Knight Frank Executive Vice President Phil Mahoney, which represents Jay Paul Company's Moffett Towers property in all leasing engagements. "Recent leasing activity at Moffett Towers alone has dropped the city of Sunnyvale's office vacancy rate nearly 10 percentage points. This state-of-the-art campus is changing the landscape of this real estate market."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Strategic Buys Four Seasons Properties for $95M

Strategic Hotels & Resorts, Inc. announced the acquisition of two Four Seasons hotels in exchange for 15.2 million shares of common stock at $6.25 per share valued at $95 million to close the deal according to a CoStar report. Strategic purchased the Four Seasons Jackson Hole and Four Seasons Silicon Valley from The Woodbridge Company Limited. Strategic was advised by Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Avington Financial Limited on the transaction.

In addition, Chicago-based Strategic separately will sell another eight million shares of its stock to Woodbridge for $50 million as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Because the two Four Seasons carry no debt of their own, adding them will lower Strategic's overall debt ratio. The company expects the Woodbridge deal to to close by March. It "is an amazing endorsement for the company," Strategic Chief Executive Officer Laurence Geller said. "And we get more stability in the stock" with 21% of it being held by two big investors.

Commenting on the transaction, W. Geoffrey Beattie, President of Woodbridge, said, "Strategic Hotels is the ideal acquirer for both of these properties given their deep knowledge of these assets, their proven investment expertise and longstanding relationship with the Four Seasons brand. We see an excellent growth opportunity in Strategic Hotels' long-term vision and near-term strategic plan."

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.

Facebook Moving HQ to Menlo Park

In the biggest lease deal in Silicon Valley since 1991 when Apple signed an 865,000-square-foot lease agreement, Facebook held a news conference at Menlo Park City Hall on Tuesday explaining that the crowding in their current location pushed the move to a larger space in Menlo Park where the social networking company will assume multiple office buildings to serve as its headquarter campus according to a CNN article. The company will begin moving its employees this summer and said that it would be renovating the campus to make it a fun place to work.

"There are very few opportunities for a city to have an 'it' company," Mayor Richard Cline said of Facebook after the press conference. "And we also have facilities that are vacant. This solves a big problem." Facebook will rent the one million square feet, nine building campus from Deutsche Bank AG’s RREEF in a 15-year sale-leaseback deal; RREEF purchased the 57-acre property from Sun Microsystems owner Oracle Corp. for an undisclosed amount. The property was built between 1993 and 1995 and was the corporate headquarters for Sun Microsystems until it was acquired by Oracle.

Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman noted that Facebook has the option to buy the property in five years. The company also bought an adjacent 22-acre property, connected to the new site by a tunnel, for future development.

For more news and information visit Blumberg Capital Partners.